 By 1891, there were at least 20,000 metal workers in localist trade unions, just as many as in the centralized German Metal Workers' Union.At a congress in 1897 in Halle, the localists founded a national organization of their own, the Representatives' Centralization of Germany ("Vertrauensmänner-Zentralisation Deutschlands").The congress was originally supposed to take place a year earlier, but a lack of interest forced it to be postponed.